Appreciate the thorough updated response Jason. I too cannot fathom a subscription software but I guess it is what it is (for now).
I guess they can't take away my CS5.5 and will always have that in my back pocket if I choose. So the bigger question really is CS6 or CC and it looks like in the end that CS6 will also go away. I heard too many bad things about CS6 to move from CS5.5. But I just read that the new MySQLi behavior has added functionality with CS6 and that's what got me thinking about upgrading. I know I'll learn this in the webinar I'm sure but do you know if the added functionality also works with CC?